Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!agate!web-1d!laba-1aj
From: laba-1aj@web-1d.berkeley.edu (John Kawakami)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Shareware MAC
Message-ID: <1989Dec4.234708.22222@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: 4 Dec 89 23:47:08 GMT
References: <89120107511652@masnet.uucp> <3395@brazos.Rice.edu>
Sender: usenet@agate.berkeley.edu (USENET Administrator;;;;ZU44)
Reply-To: laba-1aj@web-1d (John Kawakami)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 26

In article <3395@brazos.Rice.edu> bro@titan.rice.edu (Douglas Monk) writes:
>The suggestion was made that instead of using a cartridge, code that works
>like the MAC ROMs but doesn't violate Apple's copyright could be used. This
>is a great idea. No one has done it yet, which is one of the reasons why no
>Apple clones (other than STs :-) exist yet.
>It is a technical difficulty, or a legal one? How does Phoenix et al. get
>away with IBM clone ROMs? Licensing? Work-alike?
>
>Doug Monk
>Disclaimer: These views are mine, not necessarily my organization's.


The clone chips cover only the BIOS part of the OS.  Basically, all that
does is control access to resources (drives, video, etc).  The rest of
the OS is available on disk from Microsoft.

The Mac is a different story: not only would you have to re-engineer
the basic stuff, you'd have to create the screen interface, event
management, and all that other stuff.

It's the difference between cloning BIOS and cloning Gemdos, the AES and
VDI.

John Kawakami                      /
kawakami@earthquake.berkeley.edu  /            Plastic Forever!
laba-1aj@web.berkeley.edu        /